Venezuela axes New Year's party

Venezuela has cancelled public New Year's Eve festivities after the government said cancer-stricken president Hugo Chavez had taken a turn for the worse.

The government said Mr Chavez had developed "new complications" from a respiratory infection after undergoing his fourth cancer-related surgery, on December 11 in Havana, Cuba.

His vice president and political heir, Nicolas Maduro, broke the news from Havana on Sunday night, saying the condition of the firebrand leader was delicate and that he faced an uphill battle.

Mr Chavez, the face of the Latin American left for more than a decade and a fierce critic of what he calls US imperialism, has been in power since 1999 in Venezuela, an OPEC member that sits on top of the world's largest proven oil reserves.

He won a new six-year term in October elections.

Authorities canceled a New Year's eve concert in a downtown plaza and information minister Ernesto Villegas urged families "to ring in the New Year at home, praying and expressing hope for the health" of Mr Chavez.

Mr Chavez announced in late June of last year that he had been diagnosed with cancer, but did not say where or how bad it was.

He has since undergone four operations, and various rounds of chemo and radiation therapy, even though in July of this year he had declared himself totally cancer-free.